At least 32 dead in crash between train and tourist bus

May 9 2003

At least 32 people were killed when a train slammed into a German coach at a lakeside resort in central Hungary yesterday, smashing the bus in two and setting it ablaze, rescuers said.

Most of the dead and injured were inside part of the double-decker tourist coach that was dragged at least 150 metres after the passenger train rammed the vehicle at a level crossing at Siofok, on the shores of Lake Balaton.

"The site is simply awful," said spokesman for the National Catastrophe Defence Agency, Tibor Dobson, who was at the scene.

The Hungarian railway authorities said the German bus had gone through a red light at the railroad crossing on Lake Balaton, a popular resort 100km southwest of Budapest.

"There are 29 dead at the scene and three people have since died in two separate hospitals," said Bela Vaszari, chief coordinator of the country's national rescue centre.");document.write("

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"Our rescue units are on the scene and hospitals in Budapest are also in readiness," Vaszari added.

Eight people on the bus were injured but no casualties were reported among passengers on the train, which was travelling between Budapest and Nagykanizsa to the south, except for the train driver who suffered light injuries.

German television NTV said the tourists had come from the states of Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony in northern and central Germany.

Hungarian news agency MTI said the bus, carrying 40 people, caught fire and was smashed in two after it was rammed by the passenger train, which then slid off the rails.

Police spokesman Laszlo Gerencser said rescue workers were searching through the wreckage at the accident site, while about 30 ambulances and four helicopters had been despatched to help in the rescue operation.

Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy was heading for the accident site, while Germany's ambassador to Hungary Wilfried Gruber has gone to the scene with two aides.

In an accident in the same region last summer in Hungary, a pilgrimage turned into tragedy after 19 Polish tourists were killed and 32 injured when their bus slid off the road and overturned near Lake Balaton.

The 51 tourists were bound for Medjugorie in Bosnia-Herzegovina, a traditional site for Catholic pilgrimage, from the Polish town of Stoczek Lukowski, some 50km southeast of Warsaw.